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The clear waters of the Timor Sea are fabled for their rich wildlife, and also for their populations of large sharks. That's why these northern reefs became rich hunting grounds for shark fin poachers. But what are the ecological consequences of killing such large numbers of sharks? What is a 'normal' shark population?

In this 2004 story from ABC-TV's Catalyst program, Richard Smith set forth on a voyage with marine scientist Mark Meekan to investigate the shark populations on the untouched Rowley Shoals off the coast of Western Australia.

It is not an easy thing to study a creature that is more interested in eating you than in meeting you, so the team employed a series of underwater 'shark cams', and in the process captured spectacular footage of the marine world beneath.

And while they were out in the deep blue sea, they happened to catch something they had not expected; one of the boats illegally hunting sharks.

2015 update

The hunting pressure on the sharks in Australia's northern waters continued to climb until around 2007, when overfishing led to a collapse in the fishery. With so few sharks left to catch and rising fuel costs, shark fin poaching in these waters became uneconomic. The poachers began to turn their attention to other locations or if those locations were too far away, to other types of local fish — the next most valuable down the food chain.

Worldwide, the pressure on shark populations has continued. Only a handful of 'pristine' shark habitats now remain.